42 minutes ago, Fiorentoni said:

I set download interval to 15 min, theme reload interval off, smoothing rate to 25. With these settings the weather is mostly "in transition" from interval to interval, creating a believable effect of "flying into weather", but also updated weather every 15 min.

Excellent. Are there any other options/settings I should be aware of that help you out?

4 minutes ago, El Diablito said:

Excellent. Are there any other options/settings I should be aware of that help you out?

I have cloning on (because otherwise you could find yourself in the middle of a transition on final approach instead of having the "final" state as reported in the METAR"). The other settings I have them on default (realism mode default), too, I think.

Edited May 17, 20242 yr by Fiorentoni

4 minutes ago, Fiorentoni said:

I have cloning on (because otherwise you could find yourself in the middle of a transition on final approach instead of having the "final" state as reported in the METAR"). The other settings I have them on default (realism mode default), too, I think.

Thanks alot, mate!

12 minutes ago, El Diablito said:

Thanks alot, mate!

Default is pretty good (except smoothing rate), don't get into the habit of trying to finetune every setting. It's a rabbit hole, as with everything that lets you fine tune 😄

Just now, Fiorentoni said:

Default is pretty good (except smoothing rate), don't get into the habit of trying to finetune every setting. It's a rabbit hole, as with everything that lets you fine tune 😄

Yeah that's why I asked, I just wanted a good base line and I'll go from there. You mentioned cloning, is that the "Prevent downloads on approach and departure" option? If so I assume this should be enabled?

49 minutes ago, El Diablito said:

Yeah that's why I asked, I just wanted a good base line and I'll go from there. You mentioned cloning, is that the "Prevent downloads on approach and departure" option? If so I assume this should be enabled?

No, this should be disabled, because otherwise it wont't update weather at all while you're on the ground etc.. I meant the "clone..." option. But it's on by default anyway so you don't have to change anything ther.

This METAR looks interesting, hopefully I'll get to see the layers on the way up. Going to fly up to KLGA with the smoothness set to 15 as I had a rather quick transition last night on a test flight into Denver with the smoothness rate set to 25. I'm on version 8883.

METAR KCLT 181352Z 27007KT 10SM BKN011 BKN250 22/18 A2990 RMK AO2 SLP132 T02220183 $

Decided to pull the trigger on this today. And I am so glad I did. Such a huge step up from default weather. Seeing varying cloud types and distinct layers. I really love what they have done with the visibility and humidity settings. The environment feels more volumetric. Gives you a proper sense of depth.

Great job @Damian Clark

Here's my review so far..

It's a step up from the default weather for sure. That climb out of Charlotte last night was magnificent. The layers and colors were amazing and true to the given METAR with the cloud layer of cirrus at 25'000ft. I wouldn't say it's blemish free just yet however.

Some other observations I noticed - when looking at the clouds out in front of me there was a noticeable "shimmering" effect as the clouds were (I presume) smoothing.

When above the cloud layer I eventually entered an area of very thick and very high cumulonimbus clouds, which was very true radar reports, however the texturing of them was really bad and I've seen them before in default weather (obvs an Asobo issue) where the clouds look like big glimmering bags of sugar, that's the best way to describe them, there's no smoothness to them.

I had my smoothness setting down at 15 and it seemed to be working well but on approach to KLGA (somewhere over NJ) a small box appeared on my screen from ActiveSky saying "Downloading Flight Plan". I opened the app just to make sure everything was running ok in the background and I found nothing out of the ordinary, but when I went back to the sim I had a completely different landscape of cloud below me. Before opening the app I had giant gray clouds at around 35'000ft to the horizon (I was at FL390), now I had flat bunched up white cirrus at about 20'000 to the horizon, a transition that must have taken all of 4 seconds.

By the time I was down at their level they were spaced out and then again without warning, total clear skies. I checked the live webcam from La Guardia and it was sunny with broken clouds so I was scratching my head. By the time I was turning onto finals the sky populated with the correct coverage but by then I didn't care as the experience had been so inconsistent.

I wouldn't say I'm totally happy yet and there's a chance I'm doing something wrong myself but I also noticed an increase in CPU temps up to at least 15 degrees, I'm going to try a flight later without ActiveSky to see if it's the culprit but I'd say it's a work in progress at this moment in time.

Edited May 19, 20242 yr by El Diablito

Re: clone dep/dest weather on (default). Would this not prevent the dest weather to change as you fly? I guess it could be a disadvantage as weather could have changed significantly. 

42 minutes ago, Cpt_Piett said:

Re: clone dep/dest weather on (default). Would this not prevent the dest weather to change as you fly? I guess it could be a disadvantage as weather could have changed significantly. 

No, if METAR changes (via download interval), dest weather will change to. What the cloning does, is cloning the dest airport weather to the neraby area, effecitively preventing that a transition is still ongoing while you're on final approach (e.g. visibility changing on final approach), because the transition to destination weather would have been processed when you're still 80 nm out. It's a clever setting to ensure weather *is* updated at the dest airport, but without affecting you negatively during landing. It does give you up to date but also stable conditions on approach.

Edited May 19, 20242 yr by Fiorentoni

9 minutes ago, Fiorentoni said:

It's a clever setting to ensure weather *is* updated at the dest airport, but without affecting you negatively during landing. It does give you up to date but also stable conditions on approach.

That is indeed quite clever. I'll leave it at default then. Thanks!

Using Passive mode do you get the full selection of cloud types under control from MSFS or is it just the winds and temps from ActiveSky and everything else from MSFS?

44 minutes ago, El Diablito said:

Using Passive mode do you get the full selection of cloud types under control from MSFS or is it just the winds and temps from ActiveSky and everything else from MSFS?

 

Passive Depiction Mode Passive mode is used with live weather and allows MSFS’s internal live weather depiction to take full control of weather depiction in the simulator, while Active Sky FS provides Active Air Effects and all other non-depiction features (mapping, planning, voice features, conditions report, web companion app, etc.)

28 minutes ago, Bobsk8 said:

 

Passive Depiction Mode Passive mode is used with live weather and allows MSFS’s internal live weather depiction to take full control of weather depiction in the simulator, while Active Sky FS provides Active Air Effects and all other non-depiction features (mapping, planning, voice features, conditions report, web companion app, etc.)

Thanks,Bob. You seem to have had a good few hours using the app at this point. Are you getting smooth transitions or sharp transitions same as myself? I'm struggling to work out how the transitions are happening so fast for me even when I lower the smoothing setting. What settings are you currently using?